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Wildlife Crime / Feed

Wildlife crime is a complicated challenge, so it's no wonder that the conservation technology community has explored solutions with every type of technology, all with the aim of predicting, preventing, and stopping crimes like poaching, illegal logging and fishing, and the sale of animal products like ivory. Join our Wildlife Crime group to meet others who are working on potential solutions to this global challenge and to add your own expertise to the conversation! 

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Call for Nominations: Tusk Conservation Awards

Tusk
The 2020 Tusk Awards are now accepting nominations of outstanding individuals who have made a significant impact on conservation in Africa. These nominations offer the rare and exciting opportunity to honor your peers...

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12 Nov: Tech-crime workshops

The American Society of Criminology (ASC) is hosting it's next annual conference in San Francisco this November. Just before the conference, there will be 3 tech-related...

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Hi - how can I find out about future meetups please?

The ASC conference happens annually, the next one will be in Washington DC over the 18-21 November 2020. Details for the pre-conference workshops are only e-mailed a few months in advance to conference participants. I won't be attending next year, otherwise I would post any opportunities that come up on here. You could e-mail the organiser (Susan Case; [email protected]) next September 2020 to see if there are any tech-related workshops planned.

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Lion Relocation Projects

Hi All,  I am a natural history producer and I am looking for current lion relocation projects. If anyone knows of anyone working within this area please do let me know....

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article

Instant Detect 2.0 emerges

Sam Seccombe
In the past six months Instant Detect 2.0 has physically emerged, with the first prototype systems built and ready for testing at the start of April. The ZSL team is now well into their optimisation and hardening phase...

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I am doing a research project on rhino poaching at Kruger National Park. I was impressed with the idea of Instant Detect 2.0. I do not know the cost involved with installing that...
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Which NGOs are keeping detailed track of the forest-product supply chain?

Hi folks, I'm interested in developing tools to combat deforestation (to address biodiversity loss) and am trying to understand the forest-product supply chain, as well as...

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Hi Liev,

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but from the sound of it, your answer will depend on what you're looking to focus on.

By 'illegal', do you mean 'obtained a contract through corrupt means', 'failing to adhere to an existing contract in terms of engagement with a community' or 'linked to human rights allegations in terms of treating workers'?

By 'unsustainable', do you mean 'responsible for polluting the local area', 'involved in activities like palm oil production that might be globally unsustainable', or 'failing to provide employment opportunities to local residents'?

Or is the answer 'all of the above'?

I've added a few tools below that I've come across, all of which have a lot of information about various aspects of the questions you mentioned. Hope it helps!

  • https://ejatlas.org/
  • https://landmatrix.org/
  • https://resourcecontracts.org/ and https://resourceprojects.org/
  • https://openlandcontracts.org/
  • https://opendevelopmentmekong.net/search/data/
  • https://rspo.org/certification/search-for-certified-growers
  • https://open.sourcemap.com/
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Tech In the Wild: Where technology meets conservation

Fauna & Flora
Join FFI on Wednesday 25 September for our AGM and a special presentation aiming to explore the range of tech projects we currently engage in, and a look to the future to see what technological advances could mean for...

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ESA Kickstarter: Environmental Crimes

European Space Agency
The European Space Agency’s “Environmental Crimes” thematic call offers support and funding of up to €60,000 per activity to companies looking to develop services tackling illegal water, air and land polution using...

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AI for Earth Innovation Grant (extended)

Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation
To further their missions, LDF and Microsoft are collaborating on the AI for Earth innovation grant to support applicants in creating and deploying open source machine learning models, algorithms, and data sets that...

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article

Caught in the crossfire – Tapirs in tiger territory

Tim Knight
It is common knowledge that the illegal trade in tiger bones and body parts poses a grave threat to the remaining populations of Asia’s most iconic big cat. But this grisly business also has a detrimental impact on...

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WILDLABS TECH HUB Showcase

WILDLABS Team
Join us at the Tech Hub Showcase event ot hear how our winners are using technology to scale their solutions to the illegal wildlife trade. The event will take place at Digital Catapult, 101 Euston Road, London, on the...

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Meet the WILDLABS TECH HUB Winners

WILDLABS Team
In February, we released an open call for the WILDLABS TECH HUB, offering 3 months of support for solutions using technolgy to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. We were overwhelmed by an incredible 37 submissions,...

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Huge appetite for data trusts, according to new ODI research

Open Data Institute
To realise the potential benefits of data for our societies and economies we need trustworthy data stewardship. We need to establish different approaches to deciding who should have access to data, for what purposes and...

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Tech Hub open call: Tech to end wildlife crime

Hey all, We're very excited today to open applications for the WILDLABS Tech Hub. The Tech Hub will offer a 3 month programme to support tech for wildlife...

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Hello Nik
I am still very much learning about startups and building a business but the bottom line is: whatever your product or service, there need to be customers for it who are happy to pay the price you ask for. This is one of the details you have to think about thoroughly when writing a business plan. This in turn forces you to really understand your customer and their particular needs so that you can make sure your product or service is meeting these - not just your own ideas of what a great product should look like.
It does not matter whether you are selling to the public, private or third sector, whether it is a luxury item or something to "improve the public good". Your product/service needs to be affordable by the user and do the job they require it to do. The business plan forces you to work out these details.

To many engineers like myself this kind of work compares poorly to working on the tech side of a soution. But it is a VERY useful exercise and it can actually be fun once you get into it. Having said that, the infamous business plan is also often a document that is created at great effort for someone else (like a funding provider) and then filed, forgotten and never updated. A wasted effort really.
To get started try something much more visual like drawing up a 'Business Model Canvas' and 'Value Proposition Canvas' (see https://www.strategyzer.com/ ). Consider it a precursor to the business plan and "something you can pin on your office wall" to keep it updated more easily. There are plenty of useful short tutorials on the above website (just need to register for free) to explain the concept. It is making a lot of sense and I found it very useful in getting the business basics sorted out.

Good luck,
Joachim

Thanks for the wonderful answer to Nik's query, Joachim! I think you covered everything, but to put a cap on it: for our good to make a long term impact, it has to survive the long term. That means we'll have to have a plan for long-term sustainability. That doesn't necessarily mean selling expensive licenses, but it does mean knowing your costs, and having an idea of how you'll offset them. Hence a business plan.

 

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News from around the world

In positive news from China, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) has teamed up with Tencent to combat IWT online, by introducing crime reporting tools...

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Good Reads?

Hi-- What are good books about the Trade and Wildlife Crime? I'll start with LIZARD KING - by Bryan Christy - this was a really good book because it...

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Keeping this thread active. 

POACHED - Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking

by Rachel Love Nuwer

This is super interesting, and gives a really good look at poaching.  Rachel goes in depth and reports back from the field, including an inside look at the CITES meetings. This opens lots of issues that need to be addressed.

 

There are two great articles about the issue of bird poaching in the Mediterranean and its serious threat to Palaearctic bird populations by Jonathan Franzen.

A 2010 article in the New Yorker,

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/07/26/emptying-the-skies

and a 2013 National Geographic feature,

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/07/songbird-migration/

I wrote a 2017 blog post for National Geographic about the topic of bird poaching in Cyprus,

https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2017/11/21/can-anti-poaching-activism-save-25-million-birds-a-year/

Regards,

Jason

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WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Recording: Big Data in Conservation

WILDLABS Team
The WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series is a program of webinars that bring leading engineers in the tech sector together with conservation practitioners to share information, identify obstacles, and discuss how to best move...

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